


And All The Clocks Came Back To Life

by torakowalski



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Pizza Dog is also a character, birthdays are tricky, if you haven't read Hawkguy you should
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 08:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/pseuds/torakowalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson isn't a big fan of birthdays, but they're better than being dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And All The Clocks Came Back To Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdwegian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdwegian/gifts).



> Because my favourite Agent had a birthday on the 8th and my favourite Nerdwegian is having a birthday today. Happy birthday, bb, I’m so pleased to have got to know you this year <3
> 
> Thanks to 17pansies for super-fast beta work.

It’s late by the time Clint gets home – so late, it’s not even all that early – but Bruce is reading a book in the lounge and Steve and Natasha are drinking tea in the kitchen.

Natasha raises her eyebrows when she sees him and smiles. “I didn’t think you were going to make it,” she says.

Clint sighs and leans against her side while he steals a sip of her tea. He makes a face when it turns out to be camomile rather than life-giving and caffeinated.

“I didn’t make it,” he says. “It’s tomorrow already.”

Steve frowns. “What was yesterday?” he asks. “What did you miss?”

Clint looks at Natasha who shrugs, making it his decision. Great, thanks. “Coulson’s birthday,” he says. “On the eighth.”

“Oh jeez, you’re kidding?” Steve groans. “Why didn’t anyone say? We should have done something for him.”

Clint shrugs. “He kinda doesn’t like to make a big thing out of it.” Which is the biggest understatement ever; nine years ago, Phil took a mission in South Waziristan so he wouldn’t have to bring cakes in on his fortieth.

“Besides,” Natasha says lightly. Lightly is always bad when it comes from her. “Clint didn’t tell you when it was his birthday three weeks ago, either.”

“I hate you,” Clint says, taking another sip of her tea as punishment. Punishment on _who_ , he’s not sure, since it’s still fucking gross.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Bangalore?” Bruce asks, appearing in the kitchen and leaning against the doorjamb like he’s either sleepy or really wishing he was sleepy.

“It’s Coulson’s birthday,” Steve says which makes Bruce nod like he’s not surprised that Clint would fly halfway around the world for that. Seriously, Avengers are the nosiest fucking people and Clint and Phil’s cosy, secret relationship is probably not so secret anymore.

It’s still kind of cosy. Or it’s Clint’s favourite thing, anyway.

“Where is he?” Clint asks, since what’s the point in being subtle, anyway?

“Bed.” Natasha curls her foot around his ankle, keeping him in place for a second. “Don’t wake him. Today was a very long day.”

“You think mine was short?” Clint scoffs. He lets her kick him twice in the ankle though, so she’ll know he appreciates the warning. He raises his hand to the room in a general sort of wave. “Night, all, don’t party too hard.”

“Good night,” Steve says. Bruce moves out of Clint’s way and gives him a tired smile.

Clint thinks about Phil, already passed out exhausted, apparently, and what he’d do in this situation. He turns around before he’s totally out of sight and says, “Go to sleep guys, seriously, or I’ll get JARVIS to turn the fire sprinklers on you.”

They think about it for a second then Natasha tips her head. “Needs some work,” she tells him, “but good try.”

“Four out of ten,” Steve agrees with a smile.

“Oh, make it five,” Bruce says, sitting down at the table next to Natasha.

Clint flips them all off – his Coulson impression is A+ okay; they just don’t appreciate him – then heads to the elevators.

“Coulson in his room?” Clint asks, hand hovering over the floor buttons.

“Agent Coulson is, I believe, in your bedroom, sir,” JARVIS says and the number for Clint’s floor lights up without him pressing it.

“Huh, really?” Clint asks, trying not to grin too stupidly. “What about that.” There’s no way that Phil could have known to expect Clint home tonight – Clint’s sneaky and he bribed Sitwell really well – so he must have decided to sleep in Clint’s bed anyway. Just because he wanted to.

The middle of Clint’s chest gets really hot and happy at the thought of that, but he tries to pass it off as indigestion.

He opens the door to his rooms without making a sound and slips inside. The floors don’t creak, since they’re Stark floors, and they wouldn’t anyway, because Clint’s good at this sneaking around shit.

He shrugs out of his jacket, slides off his boots and pads the rest of the way to his bedroom. Despite what JARVIS said, he’s still kind of half-expecting his bed to be empty.

It isn’t.

Phil’s sprawled out in the centre of the bed, one arm tucked under his head and the other thrown over Clint’s pillow. The comforter has slipped down to his waist and his back is bare.

Clint’s exhausted but not so tired that his heart and his cock and his throat don’t all take a little leap at the sight.

It’s only the fact that he’s been wearing them for something like thirty hours straight that convinces Clint he needs to take the rest of his clothes off before he gets into bed. He does it in five seconds flat then walks silently over to the bed, trying to find a clear patch of mattress that doesn’t have one of Phil’s limbs on it.

It’s a little known fact that when Phil’s alone in bed, and when that bed is wider than the two-foot torture devices SHIELD issues, he loves to take up space.

“Hey,” Clint says softly, pitching his voice at the kind of volume that he hopes won’t wake Phil all the way up. “Give a guy some space, here.”

Phil murmurs something sleepy and rolls over onto Clint’s side of the bed, face pressed into Clint’s pillow.

Well, they’re all Clint’s pillows technically. In reality, they’ve definitely been sleeping together long enough to have their own sides of the bed.

“Close enough,” Clint whispers and lies down in the space Phil’s given him. It’s a hot night so he doesn’t fight for the comforter, just fits himself against Phil’s back and kisses his bare, slightly sweaty shoulder.

Phil shifts into it without waking up and reaches back to squeeze Clint’s thigh, leaving his hand there like Clint’s his.

Since Clint is _totally_ his, he has no objections.

The room’s quiet, Clint’s finally home, and maybe this isn’t the hot and heavy night of birthday fucking he had in mind, but it’s pretty awesome anyway.

He presses closer into Phil and closes his eyes.

***

Clint wakes in the morning to a kiss on his temple followed by a stern voice saying, “Please tell me I’m not harbouring a fugitive.”

Clint drags his eyes open and grins when he sees Phil’s face. There’s nothing particularly funny about it; he just really likes Phil’s face.

“Mission’s over,” he says, stretching. His stretch conveniently brings his arms up so he can catch the back of Phil’s neck and pull him down for a kiss. “Happy birthday.”

“That was yesterday,” Phil says, settling down on one elbow and meeting Clint kiss for kiss.

“It’s still yesterday until you get out of bed,” Clint tells him. It makes sense somewhere. Not in his head even, but _somewhere_.

“Your logic is very special, Barton,” Phil says. He lies down on his stomach next to Clint and props his chin on Clint’s chest. It’s the kind of move that Clint usually makes when he’s trying to be cute, but Phil has never tried to be cute in his life.

“Hey,” Clint protests then doesn’t really follow it up with anything. He reaches up and rubs at the corner of Phil’s eye where the usual fine lines have been joined by pillow creases. “Sorry I missed your birthday.”

Phil smiles at him with one side of his mouth; it makes his smile lines crinkle up even more. Clint should be over being fascinated by that, but he’s not. “Have we ever been together for a birthday?” he asks.

Clint thinks about it then sighs. “Nope. We suck. I mean, you were dead on your last one though, so that’s not my fault.”

He’s pretty proud of himself that he manages to make that sound offhand and teasing. At least, he’s proud until Phil goes soft-eyed and says, “Clint,” like Clint’s still giving the impression of someone who’s going to break down hysterical over the whole thing.

“No, I’m fine,” Clint protests, even though he’s not, not really. He wanted to be home for this birthday because Phil _made_ it to this birthday, against all the odds, when he really shouldn’t have.

“Of course you’re fine,” Phil says and pushes up on his hands, looms over Clint, kisses him.

Kissing pretty quickly devolves into half-awake making out with some sleep-clumsy groping thrown in.

“Hey, sir,” Clint says, grinning up at Phil and wrapping his hand loosely around Phil’s cock. “How do you feel about birthday blowjobs?”

Phil turns out to be massively in favour of birthday blowjobs and not just receiving them. Clint’s the luckiest guy in the world.

***

After breakfast (which they have at the table, since Phil has an anal-retentive _thing_ about eating in bed), Phil tries to do some work.

Clint thinks that that’s totally unacceptable.

“The world isn’t going to stop just because I got older,” Phil tells him, leaning around Clint to try to snatch his tablet back. Since Phil could flip Clint over his shoulder, grab the tablet out of midair and be halfway through an email before Clint hit the ground, Clint figures that Phil isn’t actually all that against this game.

“Only ‘cause the world’s dumb,” Clint tells him. “And you’ve got the day off.”

Phil arches his eyebrows. “Does Fury know that?”

Clint slides the tablet along the counter, further way from Phil. He’s kind of enjoying how every time Phil moves toward it, they end up with their chests pressed closer and closer together. 

“Yeah. I called him while you were in the shower. He says you have fifty seven vacation days and you can take enough time off to go to the moon, if you want to.”

“Does he have a way to get to the moon yet?” Phil asks, looking interested. Clint laughs and forgets about the tablet, hoicking himself up onto the counter instead and leaning in to kiss Phil. He makes sure to use plenty of tongue since Clint’s tongue has been known to make Phil forget arguments before.

“Fine,” Phil sighs against Clint’s mouth. “Do you have a plan, or are we just spending all day in bed?”

“Spending all day in bed _is_ a plan,” Clint says, affronted, “but nope. I have a plan. I mean, I had more of a plan when I thought I’d be back yesterday, there were like, reservations and stuff? But there’s still one thing I’d like to do, if you’re okay with that.”

“I’m okay with that,” Phil says, which is risky, since he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to. But Phil knows that and he’s agreeing anyway. It fills Clint with warm fuzzies.

“Cool,” he says, trying to sound just that, totally cool. “Put on some pants you don’t mind getting slobbery and don’t wear your dress shoes.”

“Slobbery?” Phil asks then seems to decide he doesn’t want to know. “Will jeans do?”

“Your jeans will always do,” Clint says, reaching around and squeezing Phil’s ass.

Phil laughs and swats at him, but doesn’t move away.

***

“I admit, when you mentioned slobber, I was expecting to have to wrestle bears,” Phil says. He picks his way over an overturned garbage can and looks as though he’d have prefered the bears.

Clint starts to wish he hadn’t started this now, but it’s too late to turn back.

“It can be like that around here sometimes,” he says over his shoulder and pulls a set of keys out of his pocket. They’re not his keys, they’re fresh cut and shiny, but Phil doesn’t need to see that if Clint keeps them palmed like this, if Clint changes his mind.

He lets them into the building then leads Phil up the stairs. Mrs Urbanski’s door is open, her fluffy golden puppy sitting in the doorway and watching them. 

“Hey, dude,” Clint calls, but the puppy stares at him with narrowed eyes and scoots back into the house. Huh.

“I don’t think she likes you,” Phil says, sounding amused.

“Well, she fucking should,” Clint says and doesn’t add that he could introduce a no pets policy, if he wanted to.

The smell of pot is wafting out from under weird Mr Mac’s door, which makes Clint roll his eyes. Normally, he’d bang on the door and remind him about their Keep The Window Open So I Can Plead Ignorance deal, but not today.

Up on Clint’s floor, there’s music coming from Glen’s apartment, almost drowned out by the synchronised crying from the twins next door to him. It sounds like home to Clint, who’s forever freaked out by how well soundproofed the tower is.

They almost, almost make it into Clint’s apartment without anyone giving Clint away, but just as he’s putting his key in the door, Mike the musician appears, wheeling his bike up the stairs and says, “Hey, man.”

“Hey,” Clint says quickly, waving and hoping that’s it. That’s not it.

Mike stops on the stairs and leans over his handlebars. “Light’s gone in my bathroom. I left you a couple messages; did you get them?”

Phil looks at Clint, frowning slightly. Clint sees that out of the corner of his eye and doesn’t look at Phil directly.

“No, dude, sorry,” Clint says. “I’ll bring a ladder around asap, okay?”

“Sure, cool,” Mike says easily and carries on his way.

“Are you secretly the janitor?” Phil asks. “Did you get jealous of Peter Parker and decide you needed a secret identity too?”

Clint flips him off. “It’s impossible to have a secret identity,” he says. He should know; he tried. “Fury always ruins it.”

“He does that,” Phil agrees, still looking curious and calculating. It’s a really bad look on him because it means that he’ll have shit worked out in three minutes or less.

Clint swings the door to his apartment open and is instantly bowled over by crazy, barking blur of fur and slobber. He’s aware of Phil taking an instinctive step back and his next move is probably going to be reaching for his gun, so Clint drops down on his knees and digs his fingers deep into Lucky’s fur, getting a tongue to the face for his troubles.

“Ugh, gross,” Clint says. “Bad boy. You’re a very bad boy.” He doesn’t stop petting though, so it probably lacks some authority. That’s kind of Clint’s trouble all round.

As soon as Lucky’s satisfied himself that Clint has been appropriate covered in spit, he finally seems to notice Phil.

“Oh no,” Phil says, holding out one hand. “I don’t need dog kisses.”

Lucky whines and jumps up, pawing at Phil’s thighs and digging his snout into Phil’s stomach.

“Why do you have a dog, Barton?” Phil asks. He’s skritching Lucky under the ear on the far side from Clint, like he thinks Clint won’t notice that way.

“He’s only like, half my dog,” Clint says, standing up and looking around. The apartment’s clean and smells fresh like the windows were open for a while. He’s going to owe Kate so big.

“Does he have a name?” Phil asks, reaching under Lucky’s collar for a tag.

“Lucky,” Clint says. “Or Pizza Dog. Depends on the day.”

“Lucky?” Phil asks, tipping his head and probably taking in Lucky’s missing eye and the parts of his fur that are still growing back in. “Were you being ironic?”

“Hey,” Clint protests. “No. He’s damn lucky, aren’t you boy?” He whistles, walking toward the kitchen and Lucky bounds away from Phil and over to Clint.

“Katie probably just fed you, didn’t she?” Clint says, while Lucky makes giant eyes of starvation at him. “But I bet it was some of that fancy organic shit.” He pulls down the box of kibble and shakes some out. “Here. Yummy, yummy additives.”

“Clint,” Phil says, coming around the counter and stopping Clint’s anxious movement with a hand in the centre of his chest. “Where are we?”

Clint can think of a million glib answers. He stops himself from giving any. “You know how you said you wouldn’t ask me where I go?” he says. Clint lives at the Tower now, sure, but sometimes - less than he used to, but sometimes - he just has to get out for a while.

“So you rent an apartment?” Phil asks. He’s looking around slowly and he’s lost that stepping-through-garbage look of distaste. Now he looks kind of interested.

“Kiiiind of,” Clint says, dragging it out. Then he thinks _fuck it_. “Actually I own the apartment. And the building.”

That gets Phil’s attention back on him. “You own it?” He laughs quietly. “Why? What happened? Did you win a poker game?”

“Fuck you.” Clint laughs too because it’s ridiculous. He’s not built to be a fucking landlord. “I bought it with Barney’s money. There was some... well it was a thing. With some maybe-Russian bros. It’s over now? Mostly? And I’m left with an apartment building and a whole shit load of crazy tenants.”

Phil’s bottom lip wobbles and he bites it hard. “I would love to watch you collect rent money.”

Clint ducks his head, shrugging. “I kind of forget to do that sometimes,” he admits.

Phil’s hand on his chest slides up to his chin and tips his head up enough that they’re looking each other in the eye again. “Thank you for telling me,” he says.

“S’no big deal,” Clint says... lies. Okay, it’s a shameful lie. Because it’s a massive deal to him.

“So,” Phil says, cupping Clint’s cheek rather than his chin. “Are there any perks to knowing the landlord?”

Clint’s mouth goes dry. It’s an automatic reaction to Phil hitting on him. “Only.” He swallows. “Only on your birthday. Or, like, the day after in special circumstances.”

Phil’s free hand slides down to Clint’s hip, holding on tight and drawing him in. Clint hitches himself up against Phil’s chest and leans in for what he expects to be a quick kiss.

It’s not.

It’s deep and slow and goes on forever. Clint groans right into Phil’s mouth and gives in to letting Phil take control.

“Thank you for telling me,” Phil repeats when he lets Clint up for air.

This time, Clint just nods. He rests his head on Phil’s shoulder and mouths his jaw lazily. He feels a nudge against the back of his knees, which he doesn’t understand for a second until he looks down and finds Lucky staring up at him.

The one eye always makes him look judgy, no matter what Clint’s doing. Lucky’s kind of like Fury that way.

“Sorry, yeah, we do this sometimes,” Clint tells him, patting him on the head. “You’re gonna have to get used to that.” Then he thinks about what he said and turns back to Phil. “I mean, he doesn’t have to get used to it? He lives with Kate mostly anyway, now that I’m not here so much, but...”

“I like dogs,” Phil interrupts. “And you don’t need my permission to have him at the Tower. Although you may need to smuggle him past Stark. Stark prefers his pets more robotic.”

“I kind of need your permission,” Clint says. “I mean, since we live together.”

“We live together?” Phil asks.

Clint nods. “Yes?” he says slowly. He tries to sound more certain but it turns out that that’s as certain as he gets.

Phil’s fighting a smile. That makes this embarrassment worth it. “Did I miss that?”

“Yeah, I um. It’s dumb to keep two rooms at the Tower when everyone knows about us and” Clint fumbles the freshly cut set of keys out of his pocket and presses them into Phil’s hand. “These are for here, which isn’t quite the same, but I can’t exactly give you keys to the Tower; you’ve already got those, and.”

Phil kisses him. It’s probably just to shut him up, but Clint’s okay with that.

“For my birthday, I get to live with you?” he asks. “There and here?”

“Yeah.” Clint tries to smile winningly. “Aren’t you lucky?”

Phil smiles back. “Yes,” he says easily. 

They don’t get to kiss again, not just then, because Lucky gets tired to waiting and jumps in between them, nosing at Phil’s shirt then at Clint’s. Whatever he can smell must seem pretty good to him, because he turns around and licks Phil, right in the face.

Phil splutters. Clint laughs so hard that he makes Lucky bark. 

“I’ve changed my mind,” Phil says, wiping his face on his sleeve. “About the dog, you, everything.”

“Liar,” Clint says. “Who else could give you a birthday as awesome as this?” He puts one hand on Lucky’s head to keep him down and sways into Phil. “How about I take him down to Mrs Urbanski for a while then I can show you the bedroom?”

“I can see it from here,” Phil says blandly.

Clint bites him lightly on the shell of his ear. “Can you see what’s in my nightstand drawer?” he asks, sultry-like (hopefully).

“Yes, with my x-ray vision.” Phil looks down at the dog then back at Clint. “How far away is Mrs Urbanski?”

Clint thinks about it. “Too fucking far,” he decides and gives Phil a shove toward the bedroom door. He makes his way over to the front door and leaves it open on the chain. 

There’s room for Lucky to slip through; Lucky’s a lot like Clint in that he can always get places, whether or not he should.

“Give us an hour, okay, boy?” he says to Lucky who woofs, like he actually understood that and knocks his head against Clint’s hand before slipping out the door and padding down the corridor.

Clint watches him go and laughs, shaking his head. His dog probably didn’t just give him a fist bump for bringing a guy back home, but it sure as hell felt like he did.

“Barton, are you standing me up for a dog?” Phil calls.

“Sir, no sir,” Clint says, and maybe kind of jogs back to the bedroom.

***

The best thing about birthday sex is that you get to justify birthday naps straight after. Clint’s doing just that, head on Phil’s chest and Phil’s arm around his back, when there’s the click-click-click sound of nails on wood and Lucky launches himself onto the bed.

“I said an hour,” Clint complains, turning his face into Phil’s shoulder so he doesn’t get a mouthful of fur.

“He gave us two,” Phil says, somewhere above him and sounding too amused. 

“Huh.” Clint tips his head back, grinning. “Yeah? Go us.”

Phil grins back. “Not bad for an old man?”

“Huh, that’s true.” Clint reaches through Lucky’s fur to pat Phil on the side. “Gotta watch your hip now. Can’t have you blowing that out.”

“If you didn’t have a dog on you, I’d advise you on exactly what you can blow,” Phil says. He’s tugging on the ends of Clint’s hair though, so he probably doesn’t mean it.

“Yeah, good dog,” Clint says, petting Lucky absently. 

Lucky makes a noise in his throat, turns around twice and wedges himself into the space between Clint and Phil’s knees. He’s a big dog and the space is not that big so he mostly ends up over both their knees. 

“Sorry,” Clint says, since he thinks he should.

Phil shrugs. “I don’t mind. It gives us an excuse to stay right here.”

Huh, so it does. “Good point,” Clint agrees happily, shifting around to make himself more comfortable against Phil’s chest, until he gets hit in the knee by a grumpy tail (Lucky’s not Phil’s. If Phil has a tail, Clint has seriously not been looking hard enough).

He closes his eyes and is on the brink of a really comfortable, post-coital nap when Phil says, “Thank you.”

“Hmm?” Clint asks. “For what?”

“This was a much better birthday than last year,” Phil says.

That makes Clint lift his head, not far, just enough to blink at Phil. “You were dead last year.”

“Exactly,” Phil says, and seriously, the fact that they can joke about that, the fact that Phil’s here, getting agreeably squished by Clint’s accidental-dog, is probably the best thing that’s ever happened to Clint.

“Way better than last year,” he agrees and leans up for one more kiss.

/End


End file.
